There's always that one guy.

A while back, the Typhoid Mary of American economics, Phil Gramm, chastised America as "a nation of whiners" and suggested that our economic woes were all in our head.

Jesus, what an asshole.

But, as we all know, he's not the only asshole on the block. Hell, the GOP wouldn't exist as a party without the flaming assholes they call their base, as personified by Joe the Plumber.

From Japan we get the comforting (?) news that the quality of being an asshole respects no international boundaries. That smiling man is Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso (pronounced ASS-ho) who has a history of stepping in the shimogoe.

In the past he's made fun of physicians, the mentally ill and much like Rush Limbaugh, another notorious asshole, he thinks wartime torture and brutality are all just part of the fun, like fraternity pranks.

Recently, this Aso wondered just what the fuck old people were good for. He called Japan's seniors "hobbling malingerers" and wondered why he should pay taxes to support a bunch of people "...who laze around eating and drinking and never do anything...”

Sounds remarkably like today's GOP base, doesn't he?

In an interesting parallel, this Aso may have done for his political party what George Bush did for the Republicans. See, one out of every five voters in Japan is over 70 and there's an election coming up. And just to make sure he'll never be able to find refuge in Florida, he suggested Japan would be better off spending its time attracting "rich Jews."

What an Aso.


Here, residents of the Sunshine State give Aso their votes.

The Annual Post Where I Get All Mushy Like Peas and Mashed Potatoes.

Once again, I have so much to be thankful for, including the people who read this blog.

No one makes you come here. No one quizzes you on the topics week to week, although that doesn't sound like a bad idea. I think some of you aren't paying close enough attention to my life.

And yet you return, and when life tosses the inevitable spanner and knocks your interlocutor for a loop, you give me a hand up and a dusting off. For that I'm grateful.

I'm also grateful for other people's hard times because without them, we wouldn't have email like this from a coworker's mom this morning. This is the whole thing:

Happy Thanksgiving! Don't know where you will be or who you have chosen to spend Thanksgiving with, but hope you have a safe holiday.

Hug the children for us. Love, mother

And another thing to be thankful for is YouTube because, on a whim, you can watch the great and greatly missed Mitch Hedberg. The reason I'm including this bit comes around minute 7:00.

Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving to all. See you next week.

Welcome to The Planet, member FDIC.

I've decided to become a bank.

Don't believe it? Open an account and I'll send you a toaster.

Sometime, when I get around to it.

In the meantime, I will reluctantly be forced to charge you a handling fee, a storage fee, an accounting fee, a cash-touching fee, a free gift fee and a vodka surcharge in order to process your account, which you can rest assured is completely protected by real locks with keys, a barking dog and an old man with a .45.

Why, you may ask, would a perfectly sound blog (caring for you since 2004) want to become a bank just when our financial system is looking less like Hamilton's dream, and more like an Amway pitch from a guy who used to sell car insurance?

So I can line up for that sweet, sweet government cheddar the Treasury is shoveling into banks with abandon. And I'm not alone.

American Express, the credit card company, is no longer a credit card company. Now, if you please, they are a "bank holding company" so they can get in line for their share of taxpayer bucks. Now, you could argue that credit card companies loan money and banks loan money, so it's not that big a stretch to morph from one to the other.

But insurance companies are also getting in line, their hands out. All these hardened free-market capitalists need to do is buy an old bank or S&L and then they're magically eligible for a slice of that tasty socialist pie.

Some of the largest life insurers like the Hartford, are buying up tiny savings and loans on the cheap. It's probably a coincidence that just as the Hartford bought a threadbare Florida bank, they applied to become a bank holding company and, again, another conicidence, asked Treasury for their slice. So, by spending $10  million for a saggy old bank, they're now eligible for as much as $3.4 billion in shiny federal aid. It's like a bank hold-up, in reverse.

Another insurer, Lincoln National, is buying Newton County Savings and Loan (with a full-time staff of three people who will most likely be laid off before New Year's), for just over $7 mil. In return, they could get up to $3 billion in Bernanke Bucks.

Three billion could make Daddy's Christmas a whole light brighter.

So, from now on, I'm a bank, not a blog. And, as a Grand Opening invitation, send me a thousand dollars and I'll send you a free calendar. It'll probably be for 2008, but I don't care. I don't have to. I'm a bank.

Now where's my money, bitch?

An apology:

Sunday's post scared a lot of people and I'm sorry for that. I'm trained to hold off the resolution to the end, and for several paragraphs I had readers thinking the worst. That was unfair, and while I'm touched, and more than a little amazed that so many people care about my health, that was wrong.

So, I apologize and promise not to be such an insensitive ass in the future.

(Yeah, like that's going to happen.)

Stroke.

Yesterday I woke up around four, got up to head for the head and the room reeled as if I'd been aboard ship for days. Still half in a dream, I figured it was just the unsteady foot of too much darkness and too little sleep. But deep inside my cerebral sponge lived the word - stroke.

Three hours later I awoke again, this time reeling toward the bathroom for a single aspirin. I said to Jenny, "I need to go to the hospital."

All the debaucheries, the drink, the meat, the late night rambles that have beached my carcass on this aging shore, swam through my head as Jenny drove me toward the ER. The fat that swirled throughout my blood became a living thing, and not merely numbers on a printout. My family history, let free from its resting place, swirled around the car whispering one word - stroke.

Kinder choruses sang optimistic caveats of ear infections and lesser dires. But all the angelic voices eventually spiraled down and, after clearing their throats whispered - stroke.

Without cataloguing my past, I assure you that I have been places and endured things that have scared me to the marrow. I have wrestled with panic and beaten it, and know that I have the courage, if not of the warrior, than at least as much as most men.

But that single word - stroke - scared me more than any outward threat I've ever known.

The hospital took me in quickly. It was early and the ER was barely populated. The nurses questioned me, took my blood pressure and made me comfortable. The doctors asked more questions, all while probing and tapping my corpus with trained fingers, listening for the untuned tympany of disease.

They whisked me into a mechanical room where they took deep soundings of my interior. The technician, an aspiring writer, plumbed my brain with rougher instruments and it was a welcome diversion.

In the end, as in all sappy endings that go on far too long ( think Lord of the Rings, a movie ending that overstayed its welcome like a broke in-law), the answer was an anticlimax. Vertigo was the word. The cause unknown, fitting for one who lives with mysteries. Tomorrow I will see another doctor, and quite possibly another on Tuesday.

Later, as I lay dazed by drugs, I spun around the TV dial and just as a fated roulette player who has put his last chip on double-aught sees it come up roses, Vertigo with Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak came up on the screen. How could I not watch?

It had been a while since I'd seen this movie, and remembered fevered pre-psychedelic camera work and Bernard Herrmann's usual high-drama Hitchcock score. I also remembered all the great shots of San Francisco. The movie, and the city, were a welcome tonic for an afternoon on the couch.

I learned that Vertigo was a flop when it came out and critics had an almost casual dismissal of the film. But later critics have taken a shine to it, some lifting it to the top of the Hitchcock canon. The AFI places it as #9 in the best 100 films of all time and tops in mysteries, a height that causes my head to spin a bit.

Or maybe that's just the vertigo talking.

Tomorrow, our correspondent drives himself to the doc's and to work, all the while hoping a cop doesn't pull him over and ask him to walk a thin white line.

Clothing the bones.

Wednesday night I was not in a good place. There's something really wrong with my ears, I don't feel good, Jenny's car broke down, work is stressful and when I sat down to write, nothing was happening.

No, that's not exactly true. Something was happening. Words were getting put on the screen but nothing felt right. The scene was flat, with cardboard people saying uninspired things. I felt like I'd seen this scene a gazillion times and I was just typing. There was no writing going on, nothing original was being said and the story was becalmed in a sea of noir cliche.

Part of the problem is the time frame of the novel. It's 1941 in Washington DC. Needless to say, I've never been there. So I have to make up everything. Yes, the streets are still there and I've done a lot of research on the time, but all the viscera of life, the smells, sounds and energy of the period is something I have to imagine whole.

So here's the scene: A man walks into a nightclub before it's open. He's stopped by a bouncer and asked questions. His boss overhears the interaction and let's the man in. You've seen it before. I've seen it before. And it probably won't stay this way for long.

But last night, I went back to it and suddenly the three men were talking, and acting, like real people, and it felt great. I'm still sick, my ears still hurt, Jenny's car is still in the shop and work is still stressful.

But the writing went well and that makes everything else worthwhile.

I've been doing this long enough that you'd think I wouldn't have to relearn these lessons. Some days are going to suck. Some days aren't. Some days you just write down the bones of a story and later, you get to dress up those bones with original clothing, and then the skeletons start to take on flesh and dance on their own.

I'm impatient. Beneath A Panamanian Moon came out four years ago. Other writers who had their debut alongside me, writers like our friends J.D. Rhoades and Stuart MacBride, are on their fifth or sixth novels. Not that it's a competition. I celebrate their success and try, in my own small way to support these guys.

But it does remind me that I'm not holding up my end. So I get impatient to get this manuscript done and out. I'm too slow and take too much time with the work. On nights like Wednesday, I wonder if I'll ever get this, or any other book, done and published. Then on nights like Thursday, I relax and just enjoy the fun of creation.

I know I'm not alone in this frustration. In fact, if you're going through some tough times, here's the place to vent.

That's it. No punchline. No revelations of epiphanies. Just a story of a writer writing. This is why movies about writers are usually boring.

So, in the interest of entertainment, I leave you with this great little dance. Enjoy.

A lazy man's post.

I've never done one of these memes before, mostly because of #37, but they also remind me of those giggling sex surveys we passed around in middle school (Have you kissed? With tongue?) that taught me how to lie boldly and without shame.

But someone sent this to me and I thought it might amuse while I recover.

So, here ya go:

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? Yes, King David of the Bible. (Actually, I don't have any idea.)

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? This morning when I woke up and realized I had not been embraced by sweet sweet death while I slept

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? I prefer cutting letters out of a magazine and pasting them onto the note paper

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? Long pig

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? Unfortunately for my daughter, yes

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? Only if I could lend me money

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? Me? Sarcasm?

8.. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS No, I donated them to science.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? Depends. Which, coincidentally, is what I would wear to bungee jump.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? Shredded wheat

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? I let the nurse do it.

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? My strength lies in sarcasm.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? Pistachio

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? If they look like they could lend me money.

15. RED OR PINK? Red, as in Commie Red.

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? What day is today?

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? My father.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? Only if their answers are revealing, entertaining or embarrassing.

19. WHAT COLOR SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? Red, as in Commie Red.

20. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? A banana.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? My clock ticking.

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Red, as in …

23. FAVORITE SMELLS? Baby heads.

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? Pete, our mechanic.

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? I’m madly in like with the person who sent this to me.

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? Porn.

27. HAIR COLOR? Elvis black.

28. EYE COLOR? Red, as in….

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? No.

30. FAVORITE FOOD? I am Omnivore, see me consume.

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? Depends. Which is what I wear watching scary movies.

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? Detour.

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? Faded purple.

34. SUMMER OR WINTER? Summer.

35. HUGS OR KISSES? Inappropriate touching.

36. FAVORITE DESSERT? Vodka tonics.

37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? People with too much time on their hands.

38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Reverse of #37.

39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? Charlie Opera by our friend, Charlie Stella.

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? A mouse.

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT? The Daily Show.

42. FAVORITE SOUND? Childrens’ laughter.

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? Depends. (Make your own geezer joke here)

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? Bolivia.

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? I have an amazing ability to annoy people.

46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Donora, Pennsylvania, a steel town with air so toxic it killed 19 people on Halloween night, 1948.

47. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK? Surprise me.

What happens when one lone jackass tackles too much.

Maybe it's the post-election blahs. I've got 'em so bad that news scorches my retinas the way holy water burns a vampire.

Maybe it's the full days here at work.

Maybe it's the novel I write after work.

Maybe it's this mysterious illness I picked up while traveling.

Maybe it's the nearly three years here at The Planet with a new post, on average, every day and a half.

Whatever it is, I'm tired.

Give me a few days. I'll be back.

How to fuck up an industry, a city and a country, all in record time.

If you want to sabotage an entire sector of the economy, start at a time when the largest cohort of car buyers are entering their 20's. This is when they'll be looking to make their first big purchase. This is also when buyers will begin to form brand preference, even loyalty.

Then offer them crap.

Start with the Pacer, the Gremlin and the Pinto. You know, cars that rust right on the showroom floor. Forget reliability, style, safety and fuel economy. That's for suckers who speak with funny accents.

And if you are "the Cadillac of cars," make sure you coast on your laurels until your loyal buyers die off or are lured away by BMW and Mercedes.

Then, when good sense suggests you invest in breakthrough technology like you used to, roll out big ugly SUVs instead so you can cash in on those big profit margins. Sure, it's short-term profit, but you'll be sippin' Pina Coladas in Boca before the real feculence smacks the ventilator.

Along the way, make sure you outsource as much of the work as possible to places where they have no minimum wage or environmental standards. And don't forget to appeal to your buyers' patriotism with phony "Buy American" ad campaigns. Hell, the rubes will never know that they're SUV was made in Juarez.

Screw 'em.

Finally, as the city around you dies and people get wise to the crap you've been pushing for two decades, go on a last ditch quality campaign and complain when the buyers you so arrogantly fed shit all those years refuse to come back.

And when they don't come back, and you're going broke, that's when you appeal to the last customer who will listen - the government. And all the taxpayers who got stiffed with a rusted-out Fuckmobile will be forced to pony up for decades of bad management.

Thanks, auto executives. I didn't think it was possible, but you actually pulled a George Bush on an entire industry. Way to go. Make sure you give yourselves a big bonus on your way out.

Fuckers.

Unexpected things that end up changing your life.

Like the young man with the sign, a casual encounter convinces him that he'd really, really like a wing from that other young man's bucket and so spins his life in a whole new direction, one without a girlfriend or place to stay, but a fondness for those eleven herbs and spices that cannot be denied.

We all have them, turning points that, at the time, seem trivial, but end up taking us places we never expected.

The biggest for me was when I answered a classified ad for actors and joined a theater group where I met Jenny. That was nearly 30 years ago.

A few years later I was sitting in a hotel room in Cincinnati. I turned on the TV and caught the Maltese Falcon for the first time. I was 35 or 36 and had never read any of the greats. I had been taught, unintentionally in most cases, that mystery fiction wasn't worth my time, that I was better off reading Donald Barthelme and John Barth.

It took John Huston's Maltese Falcon to convince me that I was a bonehead. I figured (duh) that if I liked the movie that much, I'd like the book. And from Hammett I went to Chandler and McDonald and then to Dutch Leonard.

When I had the time and temperament to write a novel, it was my love of crime fiction that was my foundation.

Why bring this up?

Because this weekend, Jenny and I watched Gun Crazy. I had seen it before, years ago, but this was Jenny's inaugural ride with Bart and Annie Laurie. Man, I love this movie. (Jenny liked it, but doesn't have the same affection for it that I do.)

Originally titled Deadly Is the Female, the movie tanked on opening so they renamed it Gun Crazy, a title so great that it reminds me of Victor Gischler, the writer whose Shotgun Opera and GoGo Girls of the Apocalypse are the gold standard in great titles, in my opinion.

But, as much as I love Gun Crazy, what attracted my attention was the actor who plays the judge in the beginning of the movie, the seemingly kind judge who callously sends young Bart to a reform school for a little B&E. The actor was Morris Carnovsky.



Carnovsky's movie career was interrupted for a decade or more by the blacklist. According to his Wikipedia bio, he was one of the actors named by Elia Kazan for being a commie and because a free country can't possibly have actors with unorthodox political views in its movies, Carnovsky was banned from the big screen.

I guess it made sense at the time.

I saw Morris Carnovsky on stage when I was in college. He played King Lear. I had never seen a Shakespeare play before. Not one. I had read them, never really appreciating their greatness. But when I saw the action and heard people speak the lines, the scales, as they say, fell from my eyes. I was in love, and that love continues. Given a choice between seeing Lear or Hamlet for the hundredth time, or seeing just about anything else, I'll go with Big Bill.

Small things. Answering a classified, watching a movie, seeing a play, these are the things that make unexpected changes in life. And I love that, how seemingly inconsequential things can shape your life in ways no one could have predicted.

Think about the small things in your life that changed everything. And if you want to go public with that one time in band camp, or the time you smuggled hash in from Turkey, I'd love to hear about.

Talk to me.

11/11.

Today is Veteran's Day, a day I never get off from work, which doesn quite seem fair. But as my father drilled into us, "Life isn't fair."

There's so much I want to write about, but I have paying work, so this post will have to stand on its on.

If you know a veteran, take some time today to say thanks. No matter what they did, they raised their hands and swore to defend the Constitution, with their lives, if necessary. And that's something.

To the veterans who regularly read this blog, or to those who stumble across it while looking for something better, thanks.

And welcome home.

This is why the GOP lost.

JOIN ELIZABETH AND BOB DOLE TONIGHT

Please join Senator Elizabeth Dole and Senator Bob Dole at the Election Night Victory Party tonight. Senator Dole will hold her Victory Party at the Salisbury Train Depot located at 215 Depot Street in Salisbury. This event is free and open to the public.

For additional information, please contact: 704.633.0014

What: Senator Elizabeth Dole Victory Celebration

When: Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

Time: Doors open at 7:00 p.m.

Elizabeth Dole became our senator by snatching Jesse Helms' seat just moments after the old sack of rancid goat entrails had vacated it. She hadn't lived in North Carolina since she was in school, was registered to vote in Kansas, and had lived with her husband, Bob, at the Watergate since the Cleveland administration.

But when it came time to represent our state, Liddy polished up her Tarheel bona fides by trotting out her ancient mother who actually lived in Salisbury. That's how our gal replaced Helms' saggy posterior with her much more ample tuchus.

By the way, Liddy Dole hates being called Liddy, which is why so many people call her that.

Since her election six years ago, Liddy's time in North Carolina can be measured in hours rather than days or weeks, and her interest in our state's problems was like the distracted concern you might show for the chronic bursitis of an elderly neighbor whose name you can't quite remember.

So it's no wonder she got that ample tuchus handed to her last week.

Liddy also ran a desperate ad in the final weeks of her campaign insinuating that her opponent didn't believe in God. That ad blew up in Liddy's face like a novelty cigar.

But what really lost Liddy her re-election was lame-assed campaign management, epitomized by this e-mail invite. No, it's not because they sent this invitation to a yellow dog Democrat. It's because of the time her campaign sent it:

Sent: Wed 11/05/08 3:12 AM

That's right. Liddy sent me an invitation to her victory party eight hours after the event was to begin.

It's this kind of incompetence that doomed the GOP this year, from the Bush administration's fuckups to McCain's erratic meandering, to the tone-deaf Bill Ayers ads.

January can't come fast enough.

Oh, and now that Liddy has lost her Senate seat, I'm sure she'll come home to live in Salisbury.

Yeah, like Bush is a cowboy, McCain is a maverick and Sarah Palin is qualified to be anything more than an Amway distributor, Elizabeth Dole is a North Carolinian.

Somebody pass me the barbecue.

Wow.

For the first time in a long time, the country will have adult supervision.

Congratulations to everyone who wanted this as much as I did.

To those who didn't, take it from a guy who's backed a lot of losing horses - you will survive, the country will go on, and the world will continue to spin. I guarantee, Obama is not as good as his supporters think or as bad as his detractors suspect.

But I think he's what we need.

The pile of ordure he's inheriting is so deep that I can't imagine why anyone would want the office, but I'm glad there are some men and women willing to step up, grab the wheel and try to steer this thing out of the ditch.

But let's think about that tomorrow. Today, my face hurts from smiling so much.

If you want something political to chew over, chew over this. Just how bad did George Bush, Dick Cheney and the GOP leadership have to be before a black man named Barack Hussein Obama could win in a landslide over a genuine war hero.

That's bad, people. That's bad on an olympic scale of bad.

I'm off on a corporate team-building retreat (oh joy) for three days, so the Planet will be dark for a while.

Play nice.

Let's try not to screw this up today.

I'm looking at you, Democrats.

I drove old ladies to the polls for McGovern.

I voted for Fritz Mondale.

Fritz Mondale, for God's sake.

I was there when Dukakis took his ride in that goddamn tank.

When Al Gore rouged his cheeks and sighed like an addled Gilbert and Sullivan ingenue, I hung in there.

When Howard Dean screamed and John Kerry spoke, I pretended everything was okey-doke.

So, tomorrow morning, I want to see these faces on the news. I'm not kidding.

I know Democrats would have trouble getting lucky in a women's prison, but there's no excuse this year. So make it happen, people. Make it happen.

OK, one more snarky post before Tuesday.

I took a trip north this weekend. Jenny and I drove up to meet a lovely German lady in an Obama button and to provide cheap manual labor for my nephew's latest home-improvement project - building the Taj Mahal in his backyard.

And we don't even speak Mexican. We thought trabajo was a car.

Drive the new Chrysler Trabajo!

While driving through the real Virgina, we saw McCain stickers stuck to big SUVs that got, in my estimation, about 12 MPS (Miles per Soldier). Smaller cars, driven with bigger dreams, sported Obama stickers and as we headed into the DC area, the land Joe McCain called Communist Virginia, we started seeing more Obama signs and stickers, proving nothing really, except that Joe McCain is a jerk.

Joe is John's brother, and you've probably heard that he called 911 last week to complain because he's cranky and he's old, although not as old as John. When the 911 operator asked if he was really calling the emergency line to bitch about sitting in traffic for 15 minutes, intimating that anyone who would do that is a flaming asshole, Joe McCain said "fuck you" and hung up.

Proving, once again, that 911 operators are shrewd judges of character.

Speaking of assholes, there's this story out of Michigan. (In fairness, Dusty Rhoades also picked this up over at his place.)

A woman named Shirley Nagel vied with Joe McCain for biggest asshole of the week. On Halloween, she refused to give candy to kids of Obama supporters. Here's from the Free Press:

As FOX2 News reported, Nagel planted a sign in her yard that read, "No handouts for Obama supporters, liars, tricksters or kids of supporters". Nagel, according to media reports, brought tears to the eyes of some of the young trick-or –treaters that she turned away.

Isn’t American politics great? Not only are the people you disagree with to be vilified; now their children are to be shunned? Forget the notion that reasonable people can disagree, politics is "war" and if a few children get caught in the crosshairs, well, what’s "war" without a little “collateral damage”?

Now that we've discovered a thread for this post, let's take a look at another Joe in the news. This is John McCain's new role model, Joe (not his real name) the Plumber (not his real profession).

As impossible as it is imagine, Joe the Plumber is an even bigger attention whore than Sarah Palin, soaking in his 15 minutes like a pig in manure.

Joe has become such a big celebrity in a campaign that once shunned the word that John McCain brings him up in almost every speech, introducing him even when Joe isn't there.

Supporters wave plungers in his honor, and considering the volume of feculence associated with Joe's rise to fame, those plungers are probably more appropriate than they intended.

What brought Joe to America's attention? One day, seeing a TV camera, Joe button-holed Obama and laid out the scenario that he was going to buy his boss's business (he wasn't) that would earn more than 250 grand (it wouldn't) and demanded to know how Obama's plan would affect his taxes (that he doesn't pay).

Obama calmly laid it out, assuming Joe was honest (he isn't), intelligent (he's not) and really wanted to know (he didn't). During the explanation, Obama used the unfortunate phrase "spread the wealth around," which McCain, being completely devoid of ideas, jumped on like a chihuahua on a goose dropping.

Joe the Plumber is just the latest Joe being pimped by the campaign, starting with Sarah's Joe Sixpack and, as it turns out, this Joe is just as genuine as the other Joe. Except this Joe has hired a publicist and is pursuing a country music career or maybe a shot at the Senate. What the hell, if that bundle of raw energy Fred Thompson can juggle two careers, surely Joe can handle both, too.

To bring this all back around to the beginning of this post, as we were working on my nephew's latest addition to his estate, I looked over at a neighbor's yard, where there was a NOBAMA sign and said, "I wonder if people like that know they're assholes."

My nephew said, "They should. Enough people tell them."

So here's to Joe McCain, Joe the Plumber and Shirley Nagel of Michigan. Three people who have worked diligently to make this year's Republican campaign smell a lot like ass.

It takes a lot to stand out in an election cycle, but these three have shown the grit and imagination to be True Assholes in a very crowded field.

Obama for President.

This might be my last post for a few days, so I thought I'd wrap up this week, and this campaign, with an appeal for your vote.

Earlier this week, a McCain supporter asked me why I thought Obama was qualified to be president. Before I found out that this man wasn't sincere, I thought he was serious and really wanted to know.

As it turned out, he was a whack job. All he wanted was for me, once shown the light, to agree with him that Obama is a muslim terrorist who will steal your guns, make love to your women and barbecue your household pets.

But before he revealed his crazy nature, I answered him like this:

A wise man once said that we don't elect presidents to govern, we elect them to lead. Resumes, while they're instructive, don't tell us everything. Lincoln's resume was as thin as Obama's, but he was what we needed during a dark time.

Obama has run a multimillion dollar campaign with remarkable discipline and a cool head. He has inspired millions to think about politics with hope rather than cynicism.

Obama has called us to serve and challenged us to take ownership of the change that's needed to right this floundering ship.

Obama speaks to us like we're grownups instead of willful, irresponsible children. He has moved beyond the politics of fear and resentment. He has given us a choice between a level-headed young man of intelligence, hard work, energy and optimism versus an irritable 72-year-old who is still caught up in the cultural battles of the 60's, a man who has shown abysmal judgment in everything from his choice of VP to his embrace of the Bush trickle-down snake oil.

That's why I voted for Obama. And if you haven't voted yet, that's why I ask you to choose the future instead of the past.

Vote for Obama. You'll like yourself in the morning.

Let's not talk about it and maybe those politicians will go away.

Let's talk about movies instead of that other thing in the news.

I was reading The Atlantic the other day and came across a review of David Thomson's new collection of idiosyncratic film commentary called, Have You Seen...?

But I don't want to talk about that, either.

I want to talk about something the reviewer, Benjamin Schwarz, says about a recent seminar he taught. The students were all seniors at UCLA, a place that cranks out future directors, DPs and others who want to work in the city's main industry.

Schwarz says the students "... fancy themselves sophisticated filmgoers, but haven't seen Grand Illusion, Chinatown, or a single John Ford, Cary Grant, or Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie."

Wow. So I wondered along with Schwarz, how can you consider yourself a lover of film without seeing a single Cary Grant movie? There are so many, surely you would stumble across Harvey,* North By Northwest, or Bringing Up Baby somewhere along the way.

I'm going to do the old man thing here and say, in my day, you couldn't dispatch a message to Netflix and have the film in your mailbox the next day. We had to wait for movies to come on late night TV and if you didn't catch them then, you remained an ignorant heathen. I didn't see The Maltese Falcon until I was almost 35 and the movie is what led me to the book that led me to the genre that led me to writing crime novels.

But today, you can see almost anything you want on a whim, in beautifully restored, uncut prints, often with commentary from the director or star. And still these young film fans haven't seen The Searchers? Really?

(For a great article about why The Searchers and John Ford matter, read this article by AO Scott.)

I don't bring this up to whine about the days Before Netflix, but to ask, do you really need to have seen some of the classic films if you want to consider yourself a "sophisticated filmgoer?"

I think so, but a friend here at work says you don't.

So what do you think? Are there films you haven't seen but know your education is somehow lacking because of it? Or do you think you don't need this background to appreciate today's movies? And does this apply to books?

Talk to me.

*UPDATE: Yes, I know Harvey is not a Cary Grant picture. I fucked up, ok?

There are some things that smell so bad, even dung beetles won't push them.

It started in Wisconsin. A telemarketer was so disgusted he quit rather than read one of McCain's sleazeball calls about Obama.

NYT columnist Gail Collins wrote about Ted Zoromski in The Confessions of a Phone Solicitor this past Saturday. This is Ted's story:

Zoromski was prepared to interrupt people during their dinner hours to encourage them to vote Republican. But when he got the script saying “you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge’s home and killed Americans,” he packed it in.

“Even though I was paid to do it, I didn’t feel comfortable,” Zoromski told WKOW-TV.

Now, TPM reports that dozens of phone workers in Indiana have walked off the job.

"We were asked to read something saying [Obama and Democrats] were against protecting children from danger," [one] worker said. "I wouldn't do it. A lot of people left. They thought it was disgusting."

I have my own confession to make. Long ago, when I was desperate for money, I whored myself out in New York city, making calls as Officer Shannon with the Police Athletic League. I called local businesses and sold them ads for the PAL's yearbook, a publication whose entire run would be forever housed in a warehouse somewhere across the river in New Jersey.

I reached the owner of a small bakery, and as I'd been trained, I told him who I was (or wasn't), suggested he'd helped the PAL the previous year (he hadn't), and wondered if maybe he'd like to help the boys and girls buy new equipment and uniforms again this year.

"Sure," the guy said. "How much space did I buy last year?"

"A full page," I lied.

He bought the ad. The full page ad. My commission was something like $125, a fortune at the time. But when it struck me that I'd just sold my soul for a little over 100 bucks, I quit.

People don't take these jobs because they feel a calling (no pun intended). They do it because they're broke and have nothing better.

When you're this desperate, it takes a lot to make you walk. But the McCain campaign found that depth so rancid that not even phone solicitors, people who have few choices, will take the money.

I find this news hopeful. Just this morning, I heard about a woman who worked in the credit rating business and wrote to a colleague last year, "Let's hope we're all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters :-)."

I guarantee this lamprey was making more money than those phone workers, and yet they've shown more class than all the Wall Street blood suckers combined.

And a lot more class than the sacks of shit who are behind John McCain's stinking campaign calls.

You damn Jacobites!

In an interesting look at the devolution of Republican party politics, Josh Marshall over at TPM asks:

"But does 'socialism', as a cudgel in the context of a national political campaign, not simply sound archaic?"

Until I'd read this, I couldn't put my finger on why McCain calling Obama a Socialist sounded so odd. It's like calling your opponent a Wobblie.

And spread the wealth? Isn't that what all taxes do? When they take 3+ bucks out of every ten from my pocket, and send part of it to China for interest on the debt, part of it to Halliburton to pay for Cheney's virgin blood transfusions, and another part of it to the NSA so they can listen in on GIs doing a little heavy breathing with their sweeties back home, isn't that spreading the wealth?

I heard a GOP pundit this morning, a little down, but seeing some reason for hope. Why? Because this taxing Joe the Plumber attack seems to be moving McCain in a positive direction. Really? Is this how the election will swing, once again? On taxes?

We're ten trillion dollars in debt. We have a deficit that McCain can't wave away with a few budget cuts. Even by eliminating earmarks, he'll influence a tiny sliver of the Federal budget, and we're not even talking about the financial cost of starting a war with Iran.

And yet voters are being swayed to McCain's vision by the threat that Obama will raise taxes on incomes of over a quarter million dollars from 36% to 39%? Really? Three percentage points on incomes over $250 grand? Really? This is what's resonating with the undecided voter?

Who the fuck are these people?

Some days it frightens me that this is the same regular Joe who is operating a ton-and-a-half SUV at 70 miles per hour not more than ten feet away from my little sedan. No telling when a passing thought, as rare as that must be, will distract him long enough to drift into my lane.

Eleven more days. Eleven more days. It can't end soon enough.

Great things I found over lunch.

These patriotic girls are doing their part for the cause.

And on the other side of the electoral mud pit, here are some people who love Sarah Palin. Be careful, you might get some stupid on you and that stuff is impossible to get out.

Buongiorno

I'm learning Italian, a little at a time. So far I can say my name.

Mi chiamo David.

I can say that I don't understand.

Non capisco.

I can tell a stranger that I need a doctor.

Ho bisogno di un dottore.

Tell them where it hurts.

Mi fa male qui.

Tell someone I have a flat tire.

Ho una gomma sgonfia.

Order pasta.

Vorrei pasta.

And tell a bartender when to cut me off.

Sono ubriaco.

I've wanted to learn Italian for years and now I'm trying, a phrase at a time. Why? I tell Jenny it's because I want to take her to Italy next year, but I have another reason. If the economy goes into the tank in a big way, I would rather be broke in Italy than broke in America. Here's one reason why:



This is the Italian idea of an afternoon TV talk show hostess. We have Rosie O'Donnell.

Not coincidentally, I'm voting today. This will be the first time in a long time my vote for president may make a difference. North Carolina a swing state? It only took eight years of George Bush and an incompetent John McCain campaign to put this state into play and some of our locals have been so skeert by years of Jesse Helms style booga booga, and the e-mails saying Obama is a muslim, that it's still not a slam dunk.

So, I'm not uncorking any champagne. I've been here before, only to wake up on that hungover Wednesday morning, my ass on fire, my guitar gone and my bank account empty.

What will I do if John McCain wins?

Barista, vorrei un vodka.

And keep 'em coming.

If these plucky kids could vote, who would they vote for?

Sure, Colin Powell likes Obama, but if you're like me, you've been waiting to see which of our presidential candidates would snag the influential al-Qaida endorsement. Until I saw this news, I could have sworn it would be Bob Barr, but no.

It's been announced, and the candidate of al-Qaida is none other than Senator John McCain. An intelligence group monitors this terrorist web site and translated their endorsement for McCain, which said he was more likely to continue Bush's policies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

From the story:

"This requires presence of an impetuous American leader such as McCain, who pledged to continue the war till the last American soldier," the message said. "Then, al-Qaida will have to support McCain in the coming elections so that he continues the failing march of his predecessor, Bush."

This is going to make John cranky, I'm afraid. And Sarah Palin might have to add an addendum to the list of people who pal around with terrorists.

So, will al-Qaida actively campaign for the man from Arizona? Let's hope not. Here's more from the message:

"If al-Qaida carries out a big operation against American interests," the message said, "this act will be support of McCain because it will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaida. Al-Qaida then will succeed in exhausting America till its last year in it."

Of course, this could be a trick. In fact, the syntax sounds an awful lot like Sarah Palin's. So who knows.

But as much as I might be swayed by this endorsement, I think I'll stick with That One. Because, as a native of Western Pennsylvania, I saw this yesterday:



Update: Barry Eisler weighs in on the al-Qaida endorsement with a timely reminder.

This picture makes me unreasonably happy.

There's something about the sheer dad-ness in this photo that makes me near giddy. I stole this from my friends over at First Draft and wanted to pass it along because, if you're like me, you need all the good vibes the universe can muster in these last two weeks before the election.

Why? Well, how about Palin's pandering to the "pro-America areas of this great nation." Or that batshit crazy congresswoman from Minnesota, Michelle Bachman, who wants her fellow congress critters investigated to see which are pro-American and which are not.

Paging Joe McCarthy, Joe McCarthy please pick up the white courtesy phone.

(the silver lining is that once word of this proposed witch hunt got out, Bachman's opponent got over $700 grand in donations. Why not do America a favor and send a little foldable love here.)

But it was this morning, as I was doing my bending and lifting, that I felt part of my soul leave my body. Against all sound judgement, I had clicked onto MSNBC's celebration of self-regard, "Morning Dick," (Jesus, I hate this program) and lost minutes of my life listening to those giant heads bat around this newsy bit like it was a dead mouse.

If you haven't heard about this Obama campaign catastrophe yet, hang onto your hats, because this is big, really really big.

Are you ready?

Apparently, Joe Biden said that if Obama gets elected, the world will "test" him in the first 6 months.

OMG! Tested? The President? Everyone run around! Wave your arms in the air! What will we do? What will we do?

McCain snatched at this slender reed and hurrumphed about the next president not having time to get used to the office, creating the greatest non sequitur of his thoroughly ass-hatted campaign.

Yep, that's the big news this morning, trumping the economy, war, healthcare, trade, the national debt, immigration, terrorism, infrastructure, energy and Bill Ayers. The president will be tested.

Sweet Jesus, we live in a vacuous nation.

If it wasn't for Netflix, I'd take John Prine's advice.

1000 reasons to complain that have nothing to do with politics.

The New York Times has a list of the 1000 best films EVER. Who put together the list, I don't know because I was too lazy to look. Why they hate America is a mystery.

But like all of these lists, this one has an expected degree of suckitude depending on which movies any pinhead should have included, but for reasons known only to others who had been dropped on their noggins as a child, did not.

For instance, they mention Chaplin's The Great Dictator, but consign the brilliant City Lights to the dustbin of cinema history.

They rightly included Duck Soup, but left A Night at the Opera standing abandoned on the dock. What? Was there no sanity clause in their contract?

But at least the Marx frere earned their nod. My boys, Stan and Ollie, were dissed completely, with nary a mention of Sons of the Desert or Way Out West. Sacrilege.

The Heartbreak Kid, a pleasant enough movie starring Charles Grodin and Cybill Shepherd made the cut. Harper did not.

No Harper.

No Paul Newman. No screenplay by William Goldman from a novel by Ross Macdonald.

No Harper.

Jesus wept.

And the vastly overrated Desperately Seeking Susan is on the list but Das Boot is sunk somewhere off the coast of reason. I know where I'd like to bury my das boot.

Because these critics, whoever they are, felt it was safe to include the Coens' Raising Arizona and Fargo, both terrific movies, but The Big Lebowski was as welcome as an incontinent marmot.

Dude.

Take a look at the list. Are your favorites there? Or, when it came to picking the absolute best, were the overpaid critics about as discerning as John McCain on an ibogaine binge?

Talk to me.

Republican women are misunderstood.

In California, a Republican women's club showed just how they keep their husbands amused without ever mussing their hair.

The side-splitting illustration up there is from the newsletter put out by the distaff members of the GOP's San Bernardino klavern. As you can see, someone has put Obama's face on food stamps, which explains the ribs, fried chicken and watermelon.

What? You think it's racist? In the interest of fairness, before we tar this baby with that brush, let's let the women sprechen for themselves.

From the LA Times:

"I apologize to anyone who was offended because that was not my intent," said club President Diane Fedele. "...It was strictly an attempt to point out the outrageousness of Obama's statement that he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

See? It was all because of Obama's outrageous statements. Just like when their husbands are forced to strike them when they get out of line, Obama brought this on himself. He made them do it.

If Obama had kept his mouth shut and learned his place, these women would never have done anything that intolerant people might find intolerant.

To prove the innocence of this illustration, let's take a quick poll.

Anyone who thinks this is funny, please raise your hand.

See? It was just a joke. A funny, funny joke.

Next week, these GOP women will kick off their annual Gyp A Jew for Jesus bake sale, complete with home-made goodies fresh from the ovens.

Bring the kinder!

If this is the conservative movement's idea of a romantic cruise, it's a wonder they procreate at all.

No, this is not a joke. This is a real Valentine's Day cruise being offered to America's right-leaning romantics. And really, what says romance better than a moonlight stroll around the lido deck with Ed Meese?

Maybe a candlelight dinner at the Captain's table with Tom Tancredo? Or pillow talk with John Ashcroft?

Hardline immigration policies just add a certain spark to your V-Day lovemaking.

The sponsor of this cruise is the Young America's Foundation, and tangoing on the fantail with Alan Simpson is sure to make any young lover's heart beat faster.

Rates start at $4281 per person, which in these tough times might seem a little high, but how can you put a price on ten days at sea discussing the books of Ayn Rand and the music of Ted Nugent with like-minded right-thinking people who are guaranteed to never challenge a thought in your head?

The cruise includes a stop in Key West, where Ron Robinson leads the midnight hunt of homosexuals and Ashcroft holds a witch trial for stray calicos.

In Mexico, Tom Tancredo will point out all the people he doesn't want in America.

In Latin America, there will be a special celebration honoring the Guatemalan military where couples who want to relive the Roaring Reagan 80's will get to shoot Mayans from a helicopter.

So sign up today. At this special Greenspan-inspired rate, the romantic hideaway cabins will disappear faster than the Republican party's principles.

I found this somewhere yesterday, but I don't remember where, so if I stole it from your blog without giving you the appropriate hat tip, I apologize. Click on the picture to get the AARP-approved size.

Hi, I'm Mickey Mouse and I'm here to steal the election.

It's happening. The GOP is so worried about an Obama landslide, (although with all those sleeper cell Diebold machines lying in wait, I don't know why) that they're flogging this ACORN story like it's a magical conflation of the Second Coming and Krispy Kremes. Since last Friday, Fox News has mentioned ACORN more than 300 times.

For those who don't know ACORN, it's a non-profit that advocates for the poor and part of their work is registering new voters. Yes, it's highly partisan and solidly in the tank for Obama, no question. ACORN pays people to register voters, and they pay based on the number of people registered, which just about begs some homeless guy to write in a bunch of phony names, including Mr. Mouse.

Voter registration fraud, no doubt, and it's ACORN who is defruaded out of some Night Train cash. But, it is not voter fraud. Voter fraud would be me showing up at the polls claiming to be Mr. Mickey Mouse and casting a vote. I think that's highly unlikely, don't you?

But if you listened to CNN this morning, you never would have known that. To the casual listener, this was evidence of Obama supporters trying to steal the election.

In my opinion, it's far more likely that those machines will take your vote for Obama and magically change it to a vote for McCain, but I admit, I'm a little crazy after eight years of George Bush and the fear-driven GOP campaigns of the last 20 years.

But, compared to these people, I'm the poster boy for mental health.

Bob, the guy who runs the blog Confederate Yankee, lives here in North Carolina and I've always thought he was deluded, but basically sane. Now, I'm not so sure. He and his readers are frothing at the mouth over the prospect of an Obama presidency.

It's not enough for Obama to be wrong, they have to make him the anti-Christ. Here are just a few samples posted by Bob's regular readers. Sweet Jesus, but this is a giant bucketload of crazy.

"Those who vote for Stalinbama vote out of a sense complete denial of the facts that are now coming to the surface, no thanks to the US MSM Pravda."

"For twenty years he sat in the pew as his 'pastor' spewed anti-American, white-hating filth. Obama brought his wife and kids. The only religion he ever exposed his children to was Marxism with a thin veneer of religion."

"As always, the people of the Right earn the money and the people of the Left squander it ... Some will remember that a fine man, John Heinz, left considerable sums in trusts and to his widow, Theresa. That fortune is now ammo for the socialistic takeover of this nation."

I've often voted for losing candidates. Each time I've always hoped I had been wrong and that the winning guy would be really good for the country. Sometimes the guy was good, sometimes the guy was bad, and sometimes the guy was a complete disaster.

But for a lot of people out there, they need their crazy. You've seen them at Palin rallies. You hear them on talk radio. To them, Obama has to be "that one," a secret America-hater, a Marxist, a Socialist, a Fascist, a Communist, a Manchurian candidate who will steal the election, kill your babies and fill the government with scary Arabs, muslims, terrorists and angry angry Negroes.

Look out! Be afraid! It's a centrist Democrat from Illinois! Oh, the humanity!

I don't know about you, but I can't wait for this election to be over.

Frantic paranoia is exhausting.

I love dogs.

This guy just returned from Iraq.

Welcome home.

Deluded.

Bush is telling people that in these difficult times, it's a good thing he's president.

And I am the Queen of France.